


Choosing Sides

by obstinate_as_an_allegory



Series: Other Ways Home [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-27
Updated: 2015-09-27
Packaged: 2018-04-23 17:38:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4885735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/obstinate_as_an_allegory/pseuds/obstinate_as_an_allegory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He can't fucking think about Regulus.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Choosing Sides

James is trying pretty hard not to be weird with him, which Sirius appreciates a lot, but he does sometimes catch him staring at his back with a slightly frantic look in his eye, and he does know that James is freaked out by this. Which is fair enough, really. Sirius has told him stories about his family, but always drawn in comic caricature, and showing up here like a maniac in the middle of the night probably isn’t the most reassuring thing Sirius has ever done.

 James is most shocked by the blood, because they’re sixteen and even with everything they’ve seen and done, he probably hasn’t seen someone bleeding that badly from something _deliberate_ before.

James’ Dad is most shocked by the fact that his mum Crucio’d him, used an Unforgiveable, or he would be, if Sirius had actually confirmed that. He won’t. He’s not protecting his mum, because fuck her and fuck all of them, but if Mr Potter picks a fight with the Blacks over this something really really bad could happen and Sirius is not going to take that chance, not now, not ever.

He thinks James’ Mum is most shocked by the fact that he hadn’t been eating properly, or at least that’s all he can assume from the way she keeps offering him extra helpings of shepherd’s pie and insisting that he have the last of the home-made biscuits.

The part Sirius himself is finding hard to ignore is how he can’t seem to _not care_ that his family wants nothing more to do with him. He’s hated them solidly and determinedly for six years and he owes nothing to any of them; if he’s been blasted off the sodding tapestry it’s really about time, he’ll wear it like a badge of honour. All the decent people he’s related to have their own scorch marks in the hallway of Grimmauld Place, including, he often forgets, James’ Mum.

He hates how it keeps creeping back into his brain, the blood traitor thing, because this isn’t about _blood_ , and it isn’t about betrayal, either, for fuck’s sake, didn’t they betray him first?

He can’t fucking think about Regulus.

James tries to talk to him a bit, but Sirius has long practice at deflection, so mostly James lets it drop. It’s a few days before Sirius can really do much anyway – it’s not the cuts, they cleared up pretty quick but the shakes just won’t let up – so he spends the first few days sleeping and pretending to read James’ Quidditch books and being brought more food than he feels like eating by Mrs Potter. When he’s able to move around normally again it’s easier to find distractions. They devise traps for the garden gnomes and practice Quidditch tackles in the woods behind the house. James obviously worries about aggravating his war wounds and basically lets him win for the first few rounds, but Sirius isn’t going to be handled like a big girl’s blouse so he waits until James is distracted and executes a _spectacularly_ dirty tackle which ends with James head first in a bog, broom and all, and then James is too mad for revenge to remember to be careful for a while, so they both end up pretty much covered in mud.

After about a week, James suggests that they ask Remus to come up and join them, and Sirius agrees to that immediately. Pete is on holiday with his family until the end of August, and Sirius is actually quite glad about that, because though obviously he’s _fine_ , there is something about being seen by someone who hero-worships you like Pete does when you’re, well, not at your best…

He’ll be fine by September. He’s fine, anyway.

He can’t fucking think about Regulus.

 Remus arrives stupidly early in the morning, way before it’s normal to be awake. Mrs Potter shows him upstairs anyway and makes James get up to make him breakfast, and Sirius groans and buries his head under the pillow and grumbles, ‘Moony you maniac. What time is it?’

‘Half past nine,’ Remus tells him. ‘And “hello” to you, too.’

‘Too early for hello. At half past nine, the appropriate greeting is nnnnngggh. As you ought to know by now.’

 Remus shuffles himself to sit and lean back against the headboard, and Sirius rolls towards him in a tangle of blankets and buries his face against the side of his leg. Remus pats him absently on the head and sits there not saying anything, and while Sirius isn’t actually as half-asleep as he’s pretending to be, it’s a huge fucking relief to just lie there and not say anything. Thank fuck for Moony. Who’d have thought Sirius would ever come round to the ‘silence is golden’ point of view?

 Not James, is for sure, because when he clatters back into the room carrying a tray and whistling completely tunelessly he makes enough noise to wake the Gringotts dragon from _here_.

‘Moony! How the bollocks are you, you daft bastard? What have you been up to all summer? Shut up Pads, no one believes that you were still asleep. Who wants tea? My mum made it, so you probably have to have tea. Compulsory tea! Shift it, Padfoot.’ All this while plonking a tray down on the table, pouring and stirring cups of tea more vigorously than can possibly be necessary, passing a cup to Remus and forcibly nudging Sirius’ legs over enough that he can sit down.

‘Nnnngghh,’ Sirius says, and rolls further into Remus’ leg.

‘The only appropriate greeting, at this time of the morning,’ Remus explains mildly.

‘Lazy tosser,’ James says fondly, and slurps his tea.

They talk over his head, or mostly James jabbers away and Remus murmurs quiet, amused responses whenever he pauses for breath. Sirius is too comfortable to move, so he tunes in and out and dozes, surrounded by their warmth.

He’s almost asleep when James’ voice quite suddenly comes a lot quieter, ‘Has he actually gone back to sleep?’

Remus’ fingers ghost through his hair. ‘I think so,’ he says. ‘Or he’s doing a good impression of it.’

 Well, yeah. Pretending to be asleep was another good lesson learned at Grimmauld Place.

 ‘He seems normal,’ James says hesitantly.

 ‘Yeah.’

Silence, for a while, and Sirius isn’t really trying to deceive them, but it’d be awkward to ‘wake up’ now.

 It takes a few minutes, but eventually Remus says, very softly. ‘What actually happened?’

‘Don’t know,’ James says. ‘No, really, he won’t tell me. Showed up here Saturday night, like, in the _middle_ of the night. He was bleeding. My mum had to fix him up. I don’t know what the bastards did to him, but it was something fucking awful.’ His voice has gone all quiet and weird and it’s making Sirius feel shivery and sick.

 ‘I’m just glad he’s out of there,’ Remus says.

 ‘Yeah. About bloody time.’

 ‘Mm.’

Remus sounds doubtful, and maybe like he has more to say on the subject, but Sirius has had enough. There’s no graceful way to do this, so he just rolls suddenly onto his back and they both jump about a foot in the air and look awkward and guilty, which he ignores, shuffling up in bed and demanding, ‘Where’s my bloody tea, then?’

 Later, when they’ve spent the day causing minor havoc and then hanging out Mrs Potter’s laundry in penance, James finds a bottle of highly dubious-looking whiskey and they make a fire at the bottom of the garden and sit watching the light fade over the fields.

 It’s Remus who broaches the subject, because he’s not just the sensible one when it comes to ‘what it is and isn’t a good idea to do to McGonagall’s spare hat’ and ‘when it is reasonable to climb onto the roof,’ he’s actually the best at Feelings as well. Good old Moony.

 ‘So. Has it ever been that bad before?’

‘Eh?’

Moony gives him a Look and he sighs and glares at his own feet. ‘No. It’s been… a bit… not great. Sometimes. Different this time, though.’

‘You never said,’ James says reproachfully.

‘I sort of did. I told you about the time she threw a priceless heirloom at my head then screamed at me for breaking it.’

 ‘Yeah. You said, “do you want to hear a funny story,” and then you told us that.’

‘It was funny. You laughed.’

Remus didn’t laugh then, and he looks even less amused now. ‘We should have done something before it got this bad.’

‘Like what?’ Sirius asks, kicking at the grass a bit. ‘Don’t be like that, Moony; you’re not responsible for my fucked up family.’ He tries not to choke on the last word, and nearly manages. Remus doesn’t put an arm around him, but he does lean close enough that he can feel the pressure of the other boy’s warm arm against his.

 James stares into the fire, and then shifts himself agitatedly and squints at a random tree, nose wrinkled up in thought, and finally he says ‘My mum’s worried about Regulus. If they… might, you know. Do stuff to him. I know he’s more, well, like, Slytherin, and all that, but Pads mate if they -’ He trails off, glancing up at the house. 

Sirius shivers and doesn’t – can’t – reply for a few minutes. Eventually he mumbles, ‘Regulus is – he’s ok.’

 And then he just can’t hold it together any more, because Regulus is _not_ fucking ok and there’s fuck all he can do about it now and the way this is going it’s going to get a lot worse, _a lot fucking worse_ before it gets better, if it gets better. There’s a madness in those people now, and it’s not burning itself out.

He doesn’t really realise that he’s shaking so badly in Moony’s arms until James crowds to his other side, pressing him close between the two of them. 

 

-/-

 

‘The fuck you doing?’ says a bored voice in his doorway, and Sirius doesn’t bother to turn from his artistic endeavours to acknowledge him.

‘Piss off, Regulus.’

‘Mother’s going to kill you,’ Regulus says conversationally, which might as well be his catchphrase by now, the number of times he’s said it this summer. There is, even now, a kind of admiration in the way Regulus says it – only a touch of it, mostly he sounds fascinated like he’s just endlessly stunned at his brother’s lack of self-preservation instincts.

‘Many have tried,’ Sirius mutters.

‘And that was before you decided to paint Gryffindor colours onto a six-hundred-year-old mahogany bed. Is that _Muggle_ paint?’

‘It’s fucking _paint_ ,’ Sirius says pointedly, although in fact, he did get it at the Muggle market he’s discovered several streets away from Grimmauld Place in his summer wanderings.

‘Your latest teenage rebellion: Muggle art project,’ Regulus says witheringly, trying on the elder brother tone and doing a bad job of it, he sounds like he’s bursting to tell Sirius something. He pokes at the tin of paint by Sirius’ feet in a deliberately prolonged gesture, and Sirius ignores him, and then glances at him casually, and then _freezes._

‘The fuck is that?’ He snatches Regulus’ arm – kicks the tin over in his hurry; the floorboards can have the Gryffindor treatment as well, why the fuck not  - and shoves up his sleeve and feels all the blood drain out of his face. Regulus is looking pleased and defiant and a little bit anxious for approval, and it’s _that_ that lets him find his voice. ‘You _tit_ , Regulus. You utter tit. _This_ is not a fucking art project.’

 ‘Fuck you, it’s a real one.’

 ‘No it fucking isn’t, you’re a kid; you’re not in the Evil Wankers’ Club yet.’

 ‘Shows what you know. It is. Cousin Bella took me to meet him last night. Mother said she could.’

Sirius drops his arm in sheer horror and Regulus smooths his sleeve back over the tattoo reverently. ‘You’re making it up,’ Sirius says flatly, desperately.

‘I’m not. I’m in, officially.' 

Sirius sits heavily – in the spilled paint, he’ll realise later, when James is having a coronary thinking he’s bleeding a lot worse than he actually is – and scrubs both hands through his hair. ‘You _tit_ ,’ he says again, and Regulus makes an obscene gesture and turns to leave, but Sirius snags the hem of his robes and tugs him back.

‘Listen, Reg. This is not – it’s not some fucking purebloods club where you can all go and talk about how well bred you are and polish each other’s pedigrees. This is going to get fucking _bad_. People are talking about war. Don’t you get it, you silly git, this is _bigger_ than Mum and Dad’s bullshit pureblood stuff. People have gone _missing_. You can’t just _sign up_ , like it’s the fucking boy scouts…’

Regulus jerks backwards, pulling out of Sirius’ grip and looking haughtily down on him. ‘I know a lot more about it than _you_ , dickhead. Of course there’s going to be a war. The Dark Lord is already making plans…’

‘ _Dark Lord_?’ Sirius mimics, without thinking. ‘Bit fucking pompous, isn’t it?’ Then he sobers. ‘Reg – you’re not even fifteen, you’re not a soldier.’

 ‘Not yet.’

Sirius stares at him, but then he looks like he’s going to leave again and so Sirius lunges for the door to stop him. He has to make him understand; somehow, he has to be able to…

‘Reg, come on. I know you’re – into that stuff, a bit, but it’s –‘ _Lies. Evil._ ‘It’s not all that, you know? What about – hey, what about that Ravenclaw girl with the freckles you were into? I heard her mum has some daft Muggle job of guessing what the weather’s going to be like. You fancied her; you know someone like her isn’t less of a witch than-‘

 ‘I fucking swear, Sirius if you _ever_ tell Mother or _anyone_ …’

 ‘I’m just making a point!’

‘You’re wrong! Laura Entwistle’s a filthy Mudblood, and I never fancied her, so you can shut the fuck up.’

 There’s a silence in the wake of that.

‘It’s not right,’ Sirius says plaintively, and it sounds weak. Regulus snorts derisively, and Sirius clenches his fists in anger. ‘If there’s a war, I’ll fight against all that bullshit,’ he whispers. ‘If there’s a war, we’ll be on opposite sides. Reg, you’re a twat, but I don’t _actually_ want to kill you.’

 Regulus looks stricken for perhaps a whole second, and then he runs a hand over his sleeve where the tattoo is hidden and says ‘It wasn’t me who decided to go against every single person in this family.’ He sees Sirius’ flash of anger and ploughs on, pleased that he’s getting a rise. ‘ _You_ went and got Sorted into Gryffindor and got your head full of blood traitor propaganda, and then you decided that you hated everyone when you got home. If we’re on opposite sides when the war comes, that’s a choice _you_ made.’

‘You’re wrong,’ Sirius tells him, unsure whether he’s furious or about to fucking cry. ‘You’re just too thick to see past all the rubbish they’ve filled your head with, our fucked up family and all your Slytherin mates. You can’t see past the end of your own fucking nose, all you’re thinking of is being Mummy’s perfect fucking son…’

‘And all you can think about is being Mother’s worst nightmare of a son. You’re such a fucking hypocrite, Sirius. Wait till I tell her you’re shagging the half-breed –‘

Sirius punches him so hard his knuckles sear with pain, and Regulus crumples to the floor in a way that would be satisfying if it weren’t for the fact that their raised voices have already attracted attention and he can hear the harridan screeching as she makes her way up the stairs.

 Regulus is stirring woozily on the floor by the time their mother bursts in, and Sirius has curled his fingers around his wand in preparation, in spite of his bruised knuckles.

‘What have you done?’ his mother demands, though Sirius would have thought that was obvious from Regulus’ bleeding lip and dopey expression.

 ‘What have _you_ done?’ Sirius snaps. ‘He’s fourteen, he’s a _kid_ , and you’re offering him up as a toy soldier –‘

‘Silence,’ she snaps back, raising her wand. ‘You will not speak to me like that.’

 Self-preservation has never been his strong suit, and he’s too angry to listen just now. ‘Our whole lives you’ve been filling his head with bigoted rubbish, and now –‘

 ‘Insolent boy! Blood traitor! Muggle lover! Those revolting friends of yours…’

 ‘You fucking _hag_!’ Sirius is screaming in response, ‘you shrivelled old crone, spewing your hateful…’

 He’s mid-word when the first curse flies, he dodges but he’s taken so off-guard he staggers and bumps himself off the doorframe, snatching at it to stay upright. Then he hears her shriek ‘ _Flagello!_ ’ slashing with her wand like she’s casting a fishing line, and it feels like claws have razed down his back. He scrambles for his dropped wand and she casts the same again – he can actually feel blood trickling down his back now. Regulus is sitting on the floor watching like he’s just interested to see how far they’ll go.

 Sirius manages to cast a couple of hexes to put her off for a moment while he grabs the leather jacket slung over the end of the bed, and then follows up with an _Impedimenta_ which lasts just about long enough for him to dart past her for the door. She hits him with another _Flagello_ curse as he reaches the landing and he doubles over with it, grabbing the bannister, and then another one which makes him stumble and fall halfway down the stairs, clinging onto his wand by a miracle.

‘Where precisely do you think you’re going?’ she asks, almost amused, as he hauls himself upright again.

‘I’m leaving,’ he croaks, aiming for defiance but sounding pretty pitiful, he’s aware.

 ‘You won’t get out of this house –‘

 ‘ _Expelliarmus! Stupefy!’_

Neither spell hits its target; he’s too dizzy from that fall to aim properly: all he’s done is make her angrier.

‘ _Crucio_.’

And he’s never understood, really, when there are so many spells that can cause pain - and Sirius knows a lot of them because school is always in a state of low-level warfare, these days – why this one is the one the law cracks down on so heavily. He does get it now. He does, and every nerve in his body is screaming, every blood vessel red hot, his bones shaking apart; he’s scarcely aware of the way his limbs thump helplessly off the stairs and the bannisters. When she raises her wand there’s a moment of relief so pure and beautiful that he _loves_ her, and that is the most brutal part of the whole thing.

He can’t get up. His mother gives him a disgusted look down her nose and then she turns away. He hears her say something to Regulus, fussing over his split lip, and steer him away to look after it. Sirius lies on the landing, halfway down the stairs, and realises that there’s _nothing_ he can do.

 You can’t change your family. You can’t stop the war coming, and you can’t prevent it making your own brother into your mortal enemy.

 Sirius is a Black, and he gets his stubbornness and his pride from them. He’s a Gryffindor, as well, and he’s never run away from a fight in his life, whether it’s Slytherin bullies or irate teachers or Remus at his angriest and furriest. But now, all he can do is retreat.

 It takes him a while to get up. The shakes are bad, and despair makes his limbs feel heavier than they’ve any right to be. He doesn’t think anyone even hears him shuffle down to the entryway, stooped like an old man. The front door creaks, but then he’s out. He signals for the Knight Bus, and the conductor takes pity on him despite the fact that he’s only got Muggle money in his jeans pocket, but they have to drop him at the bottom of the lane that leads to the Potters’ place because another passenger starts making a fuss about how she’s going to be late.

It’s raining by then. The walk up the lane takes him longer than it ought to, but once he can see the porch light – left on, even at this time of night, like a beacon of warmth and safety – it’s something to aim for. He’s stupidly wet and bedraggled by the time he reaches the door, and he knocks before he can second-guess himself. It’s late, but James would do his nut if he found Sirius had slept on his porch like a vagrant.

It’s James who answers. He blinks stupidly at him for a moment – maybe because he’s not wearing his glasses – and then chokes out, ‘Padfoot? What the-?’

Sirius staggers in without waiting for an invitation, and James grabs him by the arm when he stumbles. ‘Alright, Prongsie,’ Sirius croaks. ‘You did say, “come by any time.”’

‘What the _fuck_ did they do to you?’ 

‘Bit of a disagreement,’ Sirius says, and sways dangerously.

James recovers a bit, and mumbles, ‘Come on then,’ steering him for the stairs.

Sirius just lets himself be led, too tired for anything else, and when James pushes him to sit down on a bed he thinks very vaguely that he’s getting rain and blood and red paint all over Mrs Potter’s clean sheets. James notices, but he doesn’t seem worried about the sheets.

‘Are you bleeding? Merlin’s pants, Padfoot, you’re covered in blood. This is – bloody hell. What happened?’

 Sirius just blinks at him, and James takes his wrist and shakes it gently, still looking frantic.

 ‘M’alright,’ Sirius manages eventually. ‘Just… just had to get out of there.’

James looks a little reassured that he’s talking, but he shakes his head stubbornly. ‘Don’t look alright, mate. Look, I’m going to get my mum. Do you want to lie down? You probably should lie down. Here –‘

He pushes gently on Sirius’ shoulder until he’s lying on his side, and then he stands for another minute looking at him anxiously, heads for the door, comes back and drapes a red hoodie over Sirius’ shoulders. The weight of it hurts a bit on the cuts, but it’s warm and it smells of home.


End file.
